A recent lockdown at my daughters’ elementary school in Boulder, Colo., brought horrific images to mind. But it was no big deal: merely a bear seen near the playground. Ironically, an outdoors program was under way, complete with kayak pool, climbing wall and mountain-bike course. The Iockdown is typical of how wildlife interactions can so […]
Essays
Posted inWotr
A wolf tale that’s all too true
Here’s a news item you might recall, though it never got much play in the Lower 48: Alaska wildlife officials targeted more than 600 wolves for death by aerial gunning during the 2006-2007 season. In just a few months, they’d gotten close, killing 560. And as an inducement to hunters, state officials said they’d pay […]
Posted inWotr
A former Hot Shot looks at the West’s wildfires
The recent wildfires that burned 600 square miles, razed some 3,000 homes, killed 14 people and forced the evacuations of over a half-million Southern Californians shared one characteristic: All the homes burned were so close to public land that fire moved easily from hillsides covered with chaparral into subdivisions packed with natural vegetation. I’ve seen […]
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Since when did hunting become target shooting?
It started over the long Labor Day weekend and went on from dawn to dusk — the constant report of gunfire echoing against the Organ Mountains here in southern New Mexico. Another dove-hunting season had descended upon us, and all lovers of wildlife could do was wait for it to end while so-called hunters blasted […]
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Nuclear power is back with a bang
Blind faith in nuclear power overseas, growing resistance to coal-fired power plants, and skyrocketing oil prices have driven uranium prices up and resurrected a half-dead market. President Bush calls it the cleanest, safest energy in the world. We were duped once before and paid dearly for our short-sightedness. The radioactive dust still hasn’t settled from […]
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Kansas — yes, Kansas — leads the way toward innovation
Southwest Kansas gets little national attention. I recall a Calvin Trillin story about a small town there on the parched plains, isolated and insignificant. Yet the town had become a vital part of the Vietnam War because of its factory, then in frantic production manufacturing concertina barbed wire. Before that, Truman Capote made the small […]
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Even four-footed employees deserve to retire
For at least two decades, Edith Ann belonged to everyone, and to no one. Nobody could agree how old she was, just that the little bay quarter horse had lived at California’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area for as long as anyone could remember. Three generations of park visitors knew Edith Ann, and many made […]
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Condors – the best air show in the West
If you’re standing on the Vermilion Cliffs at sunset, looking south towards the Grand Canyon, there’s a good chance you might see a wonder of the West, the California condor. As this largest bird in North America glides over 3,000-foot-high cliffs, its wingspan of 10 feet wide makes its presence unmistakable. In other places along […]
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When it’s all too much
I don’t know how it happened, but somehow we ended up with five computers at home, along with the attendant plethora of mice, keyboards, monitors and printers. They were given to us, or we got them on sale, or we bought them outright. About half the stuff we didn’t use, ever. One of the hard […]
Posted inNovember 12, 2007: L.A. Bets on the Farm
Even four-footed employees deserve to retire
For at least two decades, Edith Ann belonged to everyone, and to no one. Nobody could agree how old she was, just that the little bay quarter horse had lived at California’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area for as long as anyone could remember. Three generations of park visitors knew Edith Ann, and many made […]
Posted inNovember 12, 2007: L.A. Bets on the Farm
The Sunflower State says a historic no to coal
Southwest Kansas gets little national attention. I recall a Calvin Trillin story about a small town there on the parched plains, isolated and insignificant. Yet the town had become a vital part of the Vietnam War because of its factory, then in frantic production manufacturing concertina barbed wire. Before that, Truman Capote made the small […]
Posted inNovember 12, 2007: L.A. Bets on the Farm
Bury it standing
A few weekends back, I was out in the front yard, digging a deep hole. I cut out wedges of turf to mark the dimensions, then went down through layers of topsoil. The first foot was easy, through rich moist dirt. After that I hit seams of gravel. The ground got drier and harder the […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
In Large and Sunlit Land
Here, in large and sunlit land … I will lay my hand in my neighbor’s hand And together we will atone For the set folly and the red breach And the black waste of it all. -Rudyard Kipling On New Year’s Eve 1987, in Niger, West Africa, I camped with friends at the foot […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Six Good Places
There’s a workaday village – or its ruins, anyway – hidden in the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada. I found it by following a feeling, one mapped onto my brain by ancient forces. Lately this map has begun guiding me in other places: Venice. Vancouver. Aix-en-Provence. Seattle. Even Portland, where I live. And it has […]
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Exploring the shrinking marvel of Lake Powell
I grew up thinking of Lake Powell as sacred in the way that a mass grave is sacred. But I’m also a practical person, and I see the lake as a giant highway offering access to some of the most spectacular country in the West. It was the practical side that agreed when my wife […]
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How many nuclear bombs do we need?
“When I became conscious, it was a dead city.” The college students in the room are silent as Shigeko Sasamori stands in front of them. It looks as though she wears light pink lipstick. Up close, the scars around her mouth, neck and hands are clearly visible. The morning American pilots dropped an atomic bomb […]
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Truckers or skiers, take your pick
Any conversation about the West’s dangerous interstate highways might explore why more truckers don’t use I-90 or I-70, instead of Wyoming’s infamous I-80, which stretches across the southern part of the state. Given Interstate 80’s high altitude and snow-prone disposition, plus forecasts that traffic will increase to over 14,000 vehicles a day, everyone should be […]
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What’s worse than an unethical hunter?
All-terrain vehicles aren’t good or bad in themselves; it’s all about context. When my son was lost for an entire night in the mountains of northeast Oregon, search and rescue volunteers from Union County showed up on their ATVs and set out to bring him home. I was never so glad to see machinery in […]
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The West is always wild to the young
The thing I remember most about winter in the mountains above a town in New Mexico called Las Vegas was the silence. At times, it was so quiet that, as a sheepherder from Montana pointed out, you could hear snowflakes slap against the pines. The sheepherder and I were fellow pilgrims whose lives intersected along […]
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Sometimes the priceless really is priceless
Most of us have seen those credit-card ads that go something like “Fishing license, $40. Fly casting gear, $480. Reeling in a rainbow trout in the wilderness under a 14,000-foot peak: Priceless.” But dollar signs can be associated with these “priceless” activities. Let’s start with the rainbow trout. Rainbows are native to the West Coast, […]